RESERVIST MAGAZINE SHIPMATES IN FOCUS 24 hours in every day = full-time hustle Reservists of any military branch know the value of time management. Balancing family obligations, civilian employment and a military career takes discipline and dedication. One Coast Guard reservist has a pattern of taking on challenges using a time-bending technique. Cmdr. Loraleigh Hild graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 2003 and transitioned into the Reserve in 2008. She has cultivated a career in response ashore and law enforcement that’s split between her current Reserve assignment at the Navy’s Maritime Expeditionary Security Group 2 in Norfolk, Va., (one of the units formerly known as CORIVRONs) and the Coast Guard’s Office of Law Enforcement Policy as a civilian drug and migrant metrics analyst. Many would consider a double career enough to manage, but in her off-time, Hild sought more. “I’ve always done something to challenge myself,” she said. “Triathalons, mud runs—the stuff that offers a variety of challenges. I get bored running more than 2 or 3 miles at once, or doing the same thing over and over.” Last year, her best friend Adriana called her with an intriguing new competition—the Tactical Games. Hild and Adriana met in ninth grade and remained best friends, eventually both finding careers in law enforcement, with Hild in the Coast Guard and Adriana in the Diplomatic Security Service for the State Department. When Adriana mentioned the Tactical Games, Hild was skeptical, having never shot competitively, but Adriana had already run six of the races herself and pressed Hild to consider. Finally, in October, she accepted the challenge and began training. “I sat down and gamed out my short and long term goals and the work I needed to put in. My end goal was to show up, compete, not do anything stupid and not get hurt,” she joked. “It’s important to me, though, to do difficult things, to not remain stagnant in life, to experience new things, to find balance and to have fun.” Hild had her work cut out for her. The Tactical Games are a set of events held over two days; they’re designed to test the grit, skills and abilities of competitors, and typical challenges include running, climbing, shooting and lifting. Combining this much physical endurance with marksmanship skills required a unique, varied training plan in multiple disciplines. An average day for Hild could include roadwork, weightlifting, yoga, and dry firing her pistol or rifle. This doesn’t include range time to practice mock battles or rucks for miles to get her body used to carrying weight. “This all sounds like a lot, but outside of the gym and yoga time, I rarely spend more than an hour a day on the other things,” Hild said. It does sound like a lot. Her secret? Time blocking. This time-management technique is the opposite of multitasking, allowing concentration on a single task. 24 RESERVIST � Issue 3 • 2021 Photos courtesy of Recon Photography and The Tactical Games
